Kumamoto (Japan) (AFP)

Dressed in a pink T-shirt, the Blues took their marks on Saturday at the Kumamoto Stadium (southwest of Japan), where they will face Tonga the next day in World Cup led by Jefferson Poirot, present in front of the press with Sébastien Vahaamahina and Maxime Médard.

So far, the two captains of the XV of France at this World Cup (Guilhem Guirado against Argentina and Louis Picamoles against the United States) were accompanied by a single team-mate during the match press watch.

But in third match, three players therefore, experienced executives of the team and relay in the group of the usual captain, Guirado.

"(The fact of being three) is not a will necessarily on my part but it's true that I like to have several players around me, it works like that in the team, it's the third time only that I'm captain, it's participative, Maxime and Seb are part of the players who surround me and relay the message, it's good that we are there together "explained Poirot.

It was however at 29 that the Blues have walked the lawn of Kumamoto Stadium, a somewhat decrepit stadium, located in the suburbs of the city near a large park and Park Dome, covered hall that will host several matches of the World Cup of women's handball, from November 30 to December 15.

Missing Thomas Ramos and Peato Mauvaka, who had to end their tournament due to injury.

Their team members gave them a hedge of honor by way of goodbye before leaving for the training: on their return, they packed their bags to go back to France and will meet virtually their substitutes, Vincent Rattez and Christophr Tolofua, expected at the Nikko Hotel around 9 pm local time (14 pm French).

- Short meeting -

Antoine Dupont (scrum halfback Sunday) has trained well, despite low back pain, on the lawn slightly damaged by the sun (about 30 degrees) and surrounded by an athletics track (covered by a green synthetic carpet), during the big quarter of an hour open to the press. Concluded by a superb after-contact chistera Virimi Vakatawa (holder Sunday) to ensure the continuity of the game.

A rather short session, about an hour, to preserve the organizations after the match against the United States (33-9) on Wednesday. "We were pretty good, we knew the difficulty, before the competition, to chain two games with four days apart, everything was optimized before to be ready to play this game," commented Poirot.

Captain Sunday and his partners wore a pink T-shirt in the colors of the World Rugby anti-doping campaign ("Keep rugby clean"), which is promoting it this weekend on all football grounds. world Cup.

Sunday, the Blues have any interest in being clean in their game, even if only two points are enough to qualify in the quarterfinals after the large victory of England against Argentina (39-10).

© 2019 AFP